The Loss of Time

When is it a metaphor, and when is the blue
curtain just a blue curtain, a car stalled
on the road just the result of a bad battery and
not a cosmic memo about never getting to where 
you want to go in life? There are three days 
this summer when the moon's orbit will once more 
place it at its farthest point from the equator; 
this causes the earth to spin much faster, resulting 
in shorter days. But what astrophysicists mean is 
shorter by milliseconds— the loss of time may not 
even be immediately noticeable, until a half 
century from now when perhaps we'll no longer 
have 24-hour days or 7-day workweeks. Other kinds 
of losses might only seem inconsequential—the hairs 
on your head, the thinning of sparrow populations. 
The decline of honeybees and wildflowers from habitat 
loss. Do you wonder why it's so difficult now 
to hear the whippoorwill sing its name, signalling 
the end of the season of loneliness or frost?